Dependence of Shape-Based Descriptors and Mass Segmentation Areas on Initial Contour Placement Using the Chan-Vese Method on Digital Mammograms

Table 1

Comparison of mean area overlap measures of masses with characterized margins due to changes in the location of the initial level set contour with cited interobserver variability amongst radiologists and with mean area overlap measures between radiologists and other segmentation methods in boundary delineation.

	Characteristics of mass lesion margins	Mean area overlap measures due to interobserver variability amongst radiologists	Mean area overlap measures between radiologists and other segmentation methods	Mean area overlap measures due to the placement of the initial level set contours in this study
Sahiner et al. [17]	—	0.76 ± 0.13	0.74 ± 0.13
Tao et al. [18]	Ill-defined and spiculated		0.69 ± 0.16
Xu et al. [19]	—		0.72 ± 0.13
Rahmati et al. [20]	—		0.87 ± 0.05
Pereira et al. [21]	—		0.79 ± 0.08
This study; (, )	Obscured/ill-defined with low signal areas within			0.81 ± 0.01
This study; (, )	Distinct/well-defined			0.96 ± 0.03
This study; (, )	Obscured/ill-defined with low signal areas within			0.87 ± 0.13
This study; (, )	Distinct/well-defined			0.95 ± 0.06
This study; ()	Obscured/ill-defined with low signal areas within			0.86 ± 0.09
This study; ()	Distinct/well-defined			0.91 ± 0.04